The invention relates generally to the field of franking machines and, more particularly, to the return of funds for unusable printed postage.
Historically, postage meters have been mechanical and electromechanical devices that maintain, through mechanical or xe2x80x9celectronic registersxe2x80x9d, an account of all postage printed and the remaining balance of prepaid postage; and print postage postmarks (indicia) that are accepted by the postal service as evidence of the prepayment of postage.
Small business, mailers and home mailers currently are able to use their desktop computer and printer to apply postage in the form of an Information-Based Indicia (IBI) directly onto envelopes or labels while applying an address. The IBI consists of a two-dimensional bar code containing hundreds of bytes of information about the mail piece and certain human-readable information. The indicium includes a digital signature to preclude the forgery of indicia by unauthorized parties. The postal security device (PSD) is a unique security device that provides a cryptographic digital signature to the indicium and performs the function of postage meter registers.
The IBI technology of the United States Postal Service offers the postal customer a way to pay for postage without stamps. Envelopes are franked using the postal customer""s personal computer, a personal computer compatible add-on, and the customer""s printer. The PSD provides postal value storage and the link to the USPS and the manufacturer of the personal computer compatible add-on.
As part of the process of applying postage to a mail piece the postage vault or registers of electronic meters, or the PSD of personal computer meters, is debited for the amount of postage that is due. Sometimes, the mailer decides not to mail the mail piece after postage has been applied to the mail piece, i.e., the mail piece has an incorrect destination address, incorrect recipient information, etc. The mailer also may decide not to mail the mail piece, because the mail piece is not mailable, since the mail piece jammed in the printer, the indicium and/or address was not correctly printed, the flap of the envelope fused to the throat of the envelope before a letter was inserted into the envelope, etc. In all of the above examples, the mailer""s meter was debited for the postage that was affixed to the mail piece.
If the mailer wants a refund for the amount that has been debited to their meter they have to physically deliver to the USPS and/or the meter manufacturer the mail pieces having indicia that were not used. The foregoing is costly and time consuming for the mailer as well as the USPS and/or meter manufacturer.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method that will easily and automatically recover postage that has been debited to the mailer""s meter for mail pieces that are not going to be posted. The foregoing is accomplished by scanning and extracting information from a postage-evidenced mail piece that can be used to uniquely identify a mail piece and validate the postage evidence. This information is then reconciled against centralized or distributed remote logs of postage transactions and tracking information to determine if the mail piece has already been entered into the postal mailstream and protected against fraud. Once it has been verified that the mail piece has valid postage evidence and has not yet been entered into the mailstream, the postage evidence can be voided, and the postage amount can be credited or refunded.